Savey or Sabby – Corrupted from the Spanish saber, to know.To know, to comprehend.

To Saw – To hoax, to play a joke upon one.

Sawbones – Surgeon.

Sawdust – Counterfeit gold-dust or money.

Say -A speech, what one has to say.

Sawdusty – Cajoling, flattering.

Scab Herder – Derogatory term for sheep herder.

Scad – Large quantities, plenty, an abundance.

Scace – Scarce.

Scalawag or Scallywag – A mean, rotten or worthless person.

Scaly – Mean, stingy.

Scalawag – A mean, graceless fellow.

Scamp – A worthless fellow.

Scamper Juice – Whiskey.

Scape – Gallows – One who has escaped, though deserving of the gallows.

Scape-Grace – A term of reproach, a graceless fellow.

Scare Up – To obtain, get. “Can you scare up five dollars?”

Scoff away, scuff away – To blow away, drive away, impel.

School Ma’am or Marm – A school-mistress, teacher.

Sconce – The head, pate.

Scoop in – Trick, entice, inveigle. “He got scooped into a poker game and lost his shirt.”

Scoot – Move fast, run, get going.

Score Off – To get the best of one, especially in a verbal debate.

Scow – A large flat-bottomed boat, generally used as a ferry boat, or as a lighter for loading and unloading vessels when they cannot approach the wharf.

Scranch – To crunch, crack, or break any hard thing between the teeth.

Scrap – To fight or box.

Scrape – A shave.

Scraper – A razor.

Scraps – The dry, husky, and skinny residuum of melted fat.

Scratch – Not worth much. “No great scratch.”

Scratch – To come to the encounter, begin a fight, i.e. To come to the scratch. Also means to spur a horse.

Scratching Rake – A comb.

Screamer – An extraordinary person.

Screaming – First-rate, splendid.

Screw – One who squeezes all he can out of those with whom he has any dealings, an extortioner, miser. Also means salary, wages. Also means a jailer, turnkey, or prison warden.

Screw Loose – Something wrong. “He’s got a screw loose.”

Scrouge – To crowd, to squeeze.

Scrouger – A bouncing fellow or girl.

Scrub – A horse of little value.

Schruncher – One who eats greedily.

Scuds – Money.

Scuss – Scarce.

See About – To attend to, to consider.

See How The Cat Jumps – A metaphorical expression meaning, to discover the secrets or designs of others.

See the Elephant – Originally meant to see combat for the first time, later came to mean going to town, where all the action was or to go somewhere to experience a “worldly event.” Many times denotes disappointment of high-raised expectations.

Sell Out – Leave quick.

Serve Up – To expose to ridicule, to expose.

Set About – To chastise, beat, thrash. “When I got home he set about me with a strap.”

Set By or Set Much By – To regard, to esteem. “He behaved himself more wisely than all, so that his name was much set by.”

Set Her Cap For Him – To direct her attentions to him, to endeavor to win his affections.

Set Store By – To set value upon, to appreciate.

Settled – Sentenced to prison.

Set-To – Argument, debate, contest in words.

Setting-Pole – A pole pointed with iron, used for propelling vessels or boats up rivers.

Settle One’s Hash – To properly punish one.

Seven by Nine – Something or someone of inferior or common quality. Originated from common window panes of that size.

Sewn Up – Exhausted, finished, done. Also means intoxicated.

Shack – Bunkhouse.

Shack – A vagabond, a low fellow. “He’s a poor shack of a fellow.”

Shackly – Loose, rickety.

Shake – A prostitute.

Shakes – Not much, not so good. “His horse riding abilities are no great shakes.” Also means a moment, an instant. “Hold on, I’ll get to it a couple of shakes.” Also means a good opportunity, offer, bargain, or chance. “He gave me a good shake on that land.”

Shake A Stick At – When a man is puzzled to give one an idea of a very great number, he calls it ‘more than you can shake a stick at.’

Slat – Throw down with violence. “That cowboy slatted his brains out then threw him in the horse tank.”

Slate – Abuse, quarrel.

Slathers – Abundance, no end of.

Slatted its Sails – A horse bucking.

Slazy – A corruption of the word sleazy.

Slew or Slue – In seaman’s language, to turn something around.

Slewed – Moderately drunk.

Slewer – A vulgar word for servant girl.

Slick or Slike – A pronunciation of sleek. “Her face was smooth and slike.”

Slick – To swallow.

Slick as a Whistle or Slick as Grease – To do something very smoothly.

Slicker – A group of vigilantes who operated in Missouri in the first half of the 19th Century. To “enforce” their “rules,” they were known to whip offenders with hickory switches, which was known in the Ozarks at the time, as “slicking.” Also refers to a cowboy coat.

Slicking – Whipping with hickory switches.

Slick Up – To dress up or make make fine.

Slimsey – Flimsey, frail.

Sling – A drink composed of equal parts of rum and sweetened water.

Slink – A sneaking fellow.

Slinky – Thin, lank.

Slipe – A distance. “I’ve got a long slipe to go.”

To Let Sliver – To let slip, let fly.

Sling Your Bunk – Go away.

Slog – A blow, a fight with the fists.

Slogging – A beating, a thrashing, a fight.

Slommack – Prostitute, floozie, slut, or dirty untidy woman..

Slope – To run away, decamp, slip away.

Slops – Large and loose trousers.

Slower than molasses in January – Really slow.

Slug – An ingot of gold or silver, a twenty-dollar piece.

Slumguzzling – Deceiving, humbugging.

Slummy – A servant girl.

Slump – To recite badly, fail, bungle, awkward.

Slumpy – Marshy; easily broken through..

Slush – Grease or fat from salt meat

Slue – Many, large number

These small fries are up to no good behind the barn, photo by E.W. Kelley, 1906.

Small Fry – Young children or persons of little importance.

Small Potatoes – Mean, contemptible, worthless. “He is small potatoes.”

Smart Sprinkle – A good deal; a good many. Used in the interior of the Western States.

Smock-face – A white face, a face without any hair.

Smoke Pole – Six-gun, also referred to as a “smoke wagon.”

Smooth – A meadow, or grass field.

Smoutch – To gouge, to take unfair advantage.

To Smutch – To blacken with smoke, soot, or coal. “I have smutched my fingers.”

Snake Out – Drag or haul out, as a snake from its hole.

Snake Pizen – Whiskey.

Snapped – Drunk.

Snatch – A hasty meal, a snack.

Snapper – An impudent tattler, impertinent talk, constant chatter.

Snapperhead – An impertinent fellow, one who snaps or answers to quickly or impudently.

Snippeny, snippy, sniptious, snippish – Vain, conceited.

Snipper-Snapper – An effeminate young man; a trifler.

Snipsnap – Tart dialogue, quick replies.

Snotted – Being reprimanded, hauled over the coals.

Snoozer – A thief who robs hotel guests.

Snorter – Impolite reference to a dashing or riotous fellow. A vulgar Western term.

Someone to Ride the River With – A person to be counted on; reliable; got it where it counts.

Sonk, Sonkey – A stupid fellow.

Sonofabitch Stew – A cowboy concoction that contained cow heart, testicles, tongue, liver, and marrow gut. Probably first served on a trail drive using the ingredients at hand.

Sossle Or Sozzle – A lazy or sluttish woman.

Sound on the Goose – True, staunch, reliable.

Soup – Nitroglycerine. Was often used to open bank vault. Also called “oil.”

Sourdough – In cowboy lingo — a cook or a bachelor. In mining and Old West slang, a sourdough was an experienced prospector, or a veteran in his field..

Sour On – To get sick of someone or something, to give up something out of disgust.

Sowbelly – Bacon

Span – A span of horses consists of a pair that are very much alike and harnessed side by side.

Spark – A lover, a beau.

This couple is sparking over the fence in 1900.

Sparking – Courting.

Spell – Time; for a while.

Spider – A cast iron frying-pan with three legs.

Spike Team – A wagon drawn by three horses, or by two oxen and a horse.

Spill – A strip of paper rolled up to light a lamp or or a cigar.

Splendiferous – Splendid, fine.

Spooney – A stupid or silly fellow, also a disgusting drunk.

Sportsman – A term often applied to a gambler.

Sposh – A mixture of mud and water.

Squally – A sailor’s word for windy, gusty.

Squatter – One who settles on land without legal title, a widespread practice in the West.

Squaw – An extremely derisive term for an Indian woman. Though this term was widely used in the Old West so much so that it became common language, it should not be perpetuated. as the term loosely translates to the “C” word that might be utilized today.

Squaw Wood – Cowchips.

Squeeze the Biscuit – Grabbing the saddle horn, not something a cowboy wants to get caught doing.

Squirtish – Dandified.

Sparkle Up – To hasten, be quick.

Sparrow Catching – Looking for a girl to go out with.

Speeler – A gambler.

Spindigo – Said of one who has come out badly, such as failing an examination or losing on the Stock Exchange.

Splashing – Talking without making sense or talking too much.

Split Fair – Tell the truth, divulge, inform.

Spoon – To court, make love, woo.

Spoons – Equivalent of money, means or fortune.

Spoops, Spoosy – A soft-brained fellow, or one whose manners are objectionable.

Spread oneself – To boast.

Spudgel – To move or run away quickly.

Squabash – To kill.

Squaddle – To depart rapidly, begone, cut and run, skedaddle.

Squibob – A term applied in contempt or indifference.

Squiffed, Squiffy – Slightly intoxicated.

Squinny – To cause a laugh, to laugh, wink, smile.

Staddle – A young tree; a tree left to grow when others are cut.

NOW IN A BOOK FORMMore Terms, Expanded Definitions + Reverse Lookup + More Pictures

Stall Your Mug – Go away, make yourself scarce.

Stancheous – Strong; durable.

Stand In – To cost. “This horse stands me in two hundred dollars.”

Stand the gaff – Take punishment in good spirit. “He can really stand the gaff.”

Stars – A Southern pronunciation of the word stairs, like bar for bear.

To Stave – To break a hole in, to break, to burst, as, ‘to stave a cask.’ Also means to hurry or press forward.

Stave Off – To push away as with a staff, to delay, as, ‘to stave off the execution of the project

In an episode of “the life and legend of Wyatt Earp, the phrase ” I’ve been wanting to tree Wichita” was used, and I have heard this phrase in some “Death Valley Days” episodes. The phrase to tree a town is not defined in this web site. Can you find out what it means?

Well, I think I got somewhat of an answer but I was a real cowboy quite a few times in my life..always country though but first Hollywood misuses phrases that I heard a lot..especially growing up in the Texas panhandle in the middle of no where so our kind of talk is becoming a thing of the past…but we said tree something fairly regular, using for things like..we were out hunting pheasant and a bobcat would tree us…as in run us up a tree..even though most of them cats can climb trees…I assure you…even with a shotgun in your hand…any kind of mountain lion or wild cat will leave you in fear and will do stupid shit…but you can imagine how we would use the phrase in a lot of other instances like you were scared and backed up or some such like that…but I’m on here trying to find a good word for a song I’m trying to write about Billy the kid so…if anyone’s got a good thought for shooting a gun slinger in the old West… That might sound better than shoot…I realize someone claiming to be one of the last country folk around writing a country song…but I’ve found a lot of them are musicians…we kind of were out off necessity from there not being anything to do in the middle of no where other than play music with each other so…I really would welcome any input any one on here might have for the song as I’m not great at navigating the internet